Emergency Preparedness Plan for Your Home

Disasters both natural and man-made happen even in the US and everyone should have an emergency preparedness plan for their home in just such cases. Recent natural disaster would include hurricanes like Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Andrew, and Hugo to name just a few of the more costly ones. Then you have snow storms that take out power lines and make the road un-drivable every year. Not to mention floods that take out homes, roads and entire neighborhoods. Of course, you also have man-made disasters like terrorist attacks and the like that my cut power or even leave you homeless.

Here is a basic sketch of an emergency preparedness plan for your home that you should have in place well in advance of a disaster or emergency happening in your area. It’s important that you plan ahead of time, because in a time of disaster is not when you need to get ready for one.

Food and Water
You should ideally have enough food and water for 7 days in your emergency preparedness plan for your home. The government recommends at least 3 days worth of supplies because it projects that it wouldn’t take much longer for government relief agencies to get to your home and neighborhood. But consider this, it took FEMA 5 days to get to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. In case of a major disaster, especially in a more remote area, the time frame could be worse.

You should have at least 1 gallon of water per person a day on hand for drinking, cooking and cleaning. That means buying those big jugs of water and storing them in your basement. You should figure out a rotation schedule for your water if you buy water normally to keep the water fresh.

You should also have 7 days of non-perishable food for everyone in your household. Can foods like canned vegetables and fruits, canned meats, and soups are good to have. Dehydrated foods like instant noodles and macaroni and cheese are also good to keep stored. Already mentioned few times on our website MRE meals are also great for any emergency situation. Just in case you didn’t check previous articles here are just a few suppliers you can choose from XMRE, Eversafe MREs, MRE Star, Meal Kit Supply, and Sopakco.

Power Source and Communications
You may not have power for longer than that so you need to be ready with the right supplies incorporated into your emergency preparedness plan for your home. Have enough flash lights for your home, as well as plenty of extra batteries. A gas BBQ grill or a butane portable camping stoves are good to have too. Make sure you have extra canisters of butane if you go the camping stove route.

For portable electrical power, you can also get a car jump starter. Most of these come with an AC and DC outlet that you can plug your electronic devices like radios, cell phones and laptop computers into. You may especially need something like this to recharge your cell phone for emergency communications as well as for your radio to listen for news concerning the disaster.

First Aid Kit
You also want to keep a first aid kit around the house. You should have one of these anyways, but in an emergency situation, this is something you definitely need to have.

These are the basic things you need to get before hand in your emergency preparedness plan for your home.